Saudi Crown Prince to Take Over While King Rests

King Fahd of Saudi Arabia handed over authority today to his half-brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, saying he needed time to rest.

A royal decree directed the Crown Prince "to take over management of government affairs while we enjoy rest and recuperation." The King's order did not specify how long he expected to be absent.

Saudi officials stressed that the King was not abdicating, but was taking a medical leave to recover from exhaustion. King Fahd, 74, was taken to a hospital emergency room a little more than a month ago, and the Saudi Government has maintained that he was suffering the effects of his heavy workload, persistently denying Western officials' accounts that the King had suffered a stroke.

The King was released from the hospital on Dec. 7, with assurances to the public that his health had improved. While he was shown on television receiving members of the royal family and senior officials, King Fahd has left all business of government to the Crown Prince for weeks, officials have said.

The Crown Prince has been leading Cabinet meetings, and he represented Saudi Arabia at the recent meeting in Oman of leaders of Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Saudi Arabian businessmen said the transition was smooth and elicited no outward signs of dissent within the royal family. Crown Prince Abdullah, 72, was long ago designated to succeed King Fahd. Third in line for the throne is Prince Sultan, the Defense Minister and a full brother of the King from the Sudeiri clan.

Crown Prince Abdullah, while not a member of the powerful Sudeiri clan of King Fahd, has his own power base among the large Bedouin tribes of Saudi Arabia and in the 57,000-member National Guard that he commands. In addition he is first deputy to the Prime Minister, who is the King.

In Arab circles, the Crown Prince is known to be an Arab nationalist who strongly favors unity among Arab countries. He maintains close personal ties with President Hafez al-Assad of Syria and has spoken a number of times of the need to rebuild the cohesion among Arab countries that was shattered by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait five years ago.

Western diplomats suggest that the Crown Prince may be less enthusiastic than King Fahd to endorse any and all American policies in the region.

However, Crown Prince Abdullah is likely to follow the broad outlines of established Saudi policy, which rest on maintaining a strategic alliance with the United States and friendly Arab countries to contain both Iraq and Iran.

In the last few years King Fahd has initiated a number of changes in government, intended to introduce new figures in some 250 top positions of administration and education.

In 1992, political and economic reforms reached the royal family circle when the King said future rulers should be chosen from among the ranks of the grandsons as well as the sons of King Abdelaziz ibn Saud, the founder of the Kingdom. That opened opportunities for the younger princes.

But even then, Saudi officials said the succession in the immediate future would be by seniority.

Crown Prince Abdullah's stewardship will be challenged by a persistent deficit in the Saudi budget that has resulted from a large drop in oil prices during the last decade. Government austerity measures have not succeeded in closing the gap.

Government spending increased dramatically during the Persian Gulf war, when some 500,000 troops made their base on Saudi territory at a cost to the Saudi economy of approximately $100 billion. The result has forced the country to borrow domestically as well as internationally. The country's financial reserves, once ranked at $100 billion, are all but spent.

The Gulf war also ushered in a form of domestic dissent, mostly from Islamic fundamentalists, challenging the authority of the royal family. Hundreds have been jailed, then released, but leading dissident figures remain imprisoned, leading many of their adherents to acts of increasing violence.

Last year a car bombing near the headquarters of the National Guard, commanded by the Crown Prince and trained by the United States military, killed six people and wounded scores of others. No suspects have been uncovered in the resulting investigation.

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A version of this article appears in print on January 2, 1996, on page A00003 of the National edition with the headline: Saudi Crown Prince to Take Over While King Rests. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe